B107 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Karst, Dakota Formation, Vadose Zone
Document Summary
An artesian well occurs in a confined (pressurized) aquifer, where the level of the water in the well rises above the top of the aquifer. When water under pressure rises in wells to a level above the top of the aquifer. Sometimes spouts continuously into air unless it is capped. A hot spring is a spring where water is warmer than human body temperature, while a geyser is a type of near-boiling hot spring that periodically erupts hot water and steam. Karst topography consists of an irregular series of valleys, caves, and sinkholes created by the solution of the underlying limestone bedrock by groundwater. Area with many sinkholes and with cave systems beneath the land surface. A perched water table is caused by a low-permeability geologic material of limited extent within the unsaturated zone that allows a localized mass of groundwater to accumulate above. Top of a body of groundwater separated from main water table beneath it by unsaturated zone.
